Transcript: Dems Will Stay Weak Until They Stop Obsessing Over Polls
And so here we are now, and this is an argument that I’m having, obviously, live. If we believe that our job right now—and I believe it is—is to blunt the authoritarian assault that we live within, then we have to be honest with ourselves and understand that electing Democrats in 2018, in 2020—a trifecta, remember 2020?—and to the extent that we did in 2020, did not stop Trump. Electing Democrats in those instances—I’m speaking facts—that did not stop Trump. It did not stop the abductions. It did not stop the military into our cities. It did not stop all of the things that I don’t need to detail to you.
And so the question really is, for me, the purpose of politics is to enact an agenda. It’s to actually improve the material conditions of people’s lives. It isn’t merely to get Democrats elected for the sake of doing so. And yes, I understand that that process requires electing Democrats. But which Democrats we elect, and critically, how we get them elected, matters.
Bacon: Let’s talk about, for the rest of this, we have about 10 minutes left, talk about what you called “magnetism.” Describe that, because you said there’s a … We’ve talked mostly about polling-ism, which I would argue is … Everyone here knows what polling-ism is on some level, because when you watch Hakeem Jeffries say, “The police sent to Chicago is a distraction from my health care talking points.” That’s poling-ism. I think we all know what that is. We know where it’s coming from. We’ve lived it, we’ve experienced it. Magnetism, I struggled with a little bit more. I wasn’t as familiar with what you were getting at. So talk to the audience about that a little bit.
Shenker-Osorio: So magnetism is, unfortunately, what MAGA has run on. And what’s ironic is that in all of these sort of Democrats need to be more moderated, Democrats need to sort of eschew the base and even like crap upon the base. In all of that, what folks are never asked is, how come Republicans do the exact opposite and they win with it? Like that’s never asked, right? Why is it that that’s enough?
Bacon: I think the claim is that they have the geographic advantage based on the election. I think that’s usually the it’s usually you get this.
Shenker-Osorio: Sure. So magnetism is the idea that if you want people to come to your cause, you need to be attractive. So number one, that requires having a cause. That requires actually having an agenda that you desire to enact. Second of all, it requires understanding that the people who have previously voted for you— which the polling-ists eschew as “your base,” because they think only in demographic categories. When I say the people who have voted for you, I literally mean those human beings, not their demographic features. I mean those people. And yes, they have demographic features because people have demographic features. But I actually mean those human beings. First of all, you actually need those people to be carrying your tune. If you think back to the first six weeks of the Kamala Harris campaign, you know, the coconut tree and the meme and the cake hive and if you want people to come to your party, throw a better party and everyone and voter registrations going through the roof suddenly and people being excited and people wanting to affiliate and so on. So that’s the first premise is have a clause—
Bacon: I think it’s an important thing to say, to note … I remember the first few weeks of the Harris campaign had people doing these Black women or white men for Harris. These phone calls, they’d be on a boring Zoom call. People were going to events. And then … And she was getting criticized, though, for parts of the party for not being centrist enough. And then she started moving. I want the most lethal military in the world. And then we get Ezra Klein and Jonathan Chait and so on saying she’s running the greatest campaign of all time, look how brilliant it is. And then her numbers started stalling the moment she started doing the thing that they asked for. That is a note. Sorry.
So it wasn’t just that she was being coconut meme, freedom, happy, throw a better party. She also had super concrete economic policies. Fast forward six weeks, the folks come in, tell, you know, the grownups come into the room, say, stop having your nice time. Yeah. And we veer from those concrete promises, which are important, to an opportunity economy, a walk back of the capital gains tax, no more talk about price gouging, and these sort of vague things plus Liz Cheney.
So magnetism is also an understanding that, like any magnet, you have a polarity. And what that means is, yes, you attract people to your cause, but you also repel. So let me give a super concrete example. You repel the portion of people that cannot, shall not, will not ever vote for you. Like, you will never have those people. Like me and Trump, like there is nothing he could ever do. He could say he could produce, he could provide. I’m never going to vote for him. Right. And he relishes in repelling people like me. And I’m speaking in the singular because I don’t want to speak for anybody else.
So back in the day, not so long ago, it was critical race theory. Do you think there’s ever been a survey in history in which the majority of American voters were asked, what is your top issue, your most pressing issue? Critical race theory. Do you think there’s ever been a survey where the majority was like, my most pressing issue is trans girls playing volleyball or my most pressing issue is DEI? That’s never happened. Their most pressing issue is money. It’s always going to be money. So the right sees those issue surveys and they’re like, great. Nobody cares about this. Nobody knows what this is. We can use it as a vessel to populate it with our own disgusting meaning and then make an astroturf group like Moms for Liberty to be our choir and make believe this is a big issue. Or with DEI, we call university presidents into Congress. And have at them. So they don’t just issue talking points, right? They don’t just do a social media post. They do a 360-degree surround-sound strategy around issues that are not popular.
Bacon: So you’re saying in New York … New York, I hadn’t thought of it this way, but saying, “I’m for free buses, I’m for free childcare,” and so on, and getting people to say, no … Because I thought of him as being, he’s charismatic, he smiles a lot, he has good ideas, people like him, but you’re saying he is magnetic, Mamdani. I mean, he is magnetic to people who agree with him, but he’s also getting the right, he’s also drawing the right opposition in a certain way.
Shenker-Osorio: He is drawing the right opposition, he’s forcing—I don’t know if folks have seen that brilliant, brilliant dramatic reading of the piece from The New York Times about the people in the Hamptons who are crying themselves into their whatever, and I mean that is a perfect encapsulation of magnetism. He is reveling in repelling the billionaire class that’s very upset about him. He’s not making believe—don’t worry, a rising tide lifts all boats, it’s fine, Everyone’s going to do better, I’m not going to … He’s like, “No.” I’m not sure if I’m allowed to swear here. This is the longest I’ve gone without swearing. “No, jerk face.” That’s my PG. “No, jerk face. I’m going to tax you. I’m not going to pretend I’m not going to. And when that pisses you off, I’m not going to be concerned about that. I’m going to call it magically delicious.”
Bacon: I think part of the issue is here, I guess people probably listening to this call and myself even, the paragon of our politics is a man who sort of famously said, there are no red states or blue states, which he probably knew was inaccurate at the time, and has become really much so. I don’t think Obama, I don’t think most of the time was trying to get everyone to like him and antagonize no one. So I’m struck by this. You need magnetism means not just being appealing, but also picking the right enemy, so to speak, or picking the right … And I think it’s an interesting insight that I’ve got to think some more about.
Shenker-Osorio: I mean Obama, because—I’m going to provide you some information you didn’t know, Perry—because America has a slight problem with Black men, because there’s a little bit of racism in our country, which I’m happy to, I’m glad to explain to you. Because you don’t know never heard of it
Bacon: Yeah, never heard of it.
Shenker-Osorio: Boy I hope people can hear sarcasm. He was magnetic in the attractive-repulsive by his very being.
Bacon: Okay, that’s fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shenker-Osorio: As is Kamala Harris. And I hope it’s clear—that’s not a him thing.
Bacon: I agree, yes.
Shenker-Osorio: My younger son says to me, that’s an ish you, not an ish me. So that was an ish you for America, not an ish me. That’s just the reality of who he was, who he is, of course. But, and I talk about this in the piece, one of his most famous ads, which actually was only released on the web, they never spent any TV money on it at all, was a group of celebrities singing from the concession speech that he gave when he lost in his first primary or second, I don’t know, I think it was Iowa, was him saying, yes, we can, and speaking about enslavement.
Bacon: I’ll go back and look at that.
Shenker-Osorio: That is an example of magnetism.
Bacon: All right. Well, let’s, I think this has been a good, we’re going to come back and come back and talk to you again to get into this more. We can talk about this for two hours, but I’m going to stop here. Anything else with the piece or anything else about what you really about polling-ism and magnetism that you want to tell the audience that I didn’t ask about?
Shenker-Osorio: What I would say is that the siren song of authoritarians everywhere, both in contemporary time and in history, is to foment a counter-revolution against a revolution that never occurred. It is to say, would you like to know why you’re struggling? Would you like to know why you’re having a hard time? Would you like to know why you feel out of place? Would you like to know why you have more month than check and the world is making no sense to you? It’s because of those people. And those people could be welfare queens back in the day who are not working, who are living high off the hog in the system. Those people could be, forgive the terminology, illegals. Those people in other times and places are Roma in Hungary, or they’re Syrian refugees there as well, or they’re Southern Europeans in the case of Brexit, or they’re Muslims in the case of India with Modi. But this is what authoritarians do, right? There’s no quicker route to an “us” than construction of a “them.”
And if we don’t deeply understand that and that that is the argument that they are providing to their base, they are providing an origin story for people’s pain. It’s a lie. But they are telling people, these are the heroes. These are the villains. This is why your life is hard. And this is how we’re going to fix it for you. And when we are making believe that that isn’t going on and we are either actually crediting their argument by saying, you know what? You’re right. We did lose because of immigrants and trans people.
Bacon: Education is too woke. You know, yeah, yeah. All the things that they say.
Shenker-Osorio: Right. You’re saying that your opposition is correct. In some way, right? And you are feeding their origin story, their lie, and you are failing to give a correct origin story. But the only way that the correct origin story can work is if you actually mean it—if you actually mean that you are going to govern with, for, and by working people.
And that means that you can’t talk about, you know, the rules are rigged and we have to actually make things right for you and vote for, you know, crypto corruption. You can’t do that. And you can’t, you know, not full-throatedly support and endorse and force a hike of the minimum wage. You know, you have to full-throatedly support unions.
When FDR said about the billionaires—you want to talk about magnetism—“I welcome their hatred. I welcome their ire,” right? Because he knew there are sides, and the sides are the working people of America across races, places, genders, whatever, and the owning class that is taking the wealth our work creates.
And when you try to replace that and have no villains because you just want neoliberalism and a rising tide lifts all boats and we’re all going to do better and we don’t need to actually have and support unions and raise wages and all the rest of it, then you render people susceptible to this siren song of the right. Neoliberalism is the handmaiden to authoritarianism everywhere. That’s what I would say.
Bacon: And that’s a great note to end on, Anat. Thanks for joining us. Thanks to the audience who tuned in to watch. And we’ll be back next week. Thank you. Bye-bye.
